Oberholtzer tagged as Astros shutout by Nationals to end tough April

Astros-Nationals: April 29-30

Dexter Fowler and Jason Castro both pointed to how early in the season it is. The Astros’ starting pitcher was more straightforward after a 7-0 loss to the Nationals on Wednesday.

Lefty Brett Oberholtzer has hit the first ugly patch of his major league career – bound to happen at some point, but not much comfort in the big picture as he fell to 0-5. Wednesday’s defeat marked the second straight outing the Astros sophomore strained the bullpen.

“I just think we got to do a better job coming out ready to play,” Oberholtzer said. “(You) get the vibe from other teams that they’re just ready to come in and beat us and that’s frustrating.

“We’re not going to beat anyone on a day-to-day basis with our talent. But we definitely got to do a better job of willing ourselves to compete on a day-to-day basis. And matching the intensity the other teams bring to the game. A lot of these teams, especially in our division, they’re strong and they’re ready to compete and make it a long stretch down the road and hopefully go to the playoffs, unlike us. We’re a little different.”

The Nats swept this two-game series at Minute Maid Park, pushing the Astros to their second scheduled off day in four days on Thursday.

Oberholtzer allowed six runs in 4 2⁄3 innings. In his last two starts combined, he’s surrendered 12 runs in 81⁄3 innings. Houston’s own Anthony Rendon, whom Astros manager Bo Porter coached while in Washington, went 4-for-5 with three RBIs for the Nationals.

The Astros finished April 9-19, one win better than the 8-19 record they finished the month with in 2013. They didn’t win their ninth game in 2013 until May 7.

“I think that we let some winnable games get away,” Porter said. “It’s been inconsistent offense. At the same time I feel like our starting pitching has been good enough to win more ball games. We have some things we need to get straightened out in our bullpen. For the most part, I feel like defensively, we’ve played well. We’ve made some errors, but the errors that concern more are what I call the impact errors that lead to runs – like both of the errors we had today.”

But this isn’t real improvement from last year’s carnival show, and a miserable April could set up an intriguing May. What’s the level of tolerance management will have if this level of play continues?

No one should have expected a winning season from the Astros, but they weren’t supposed to be as bad as last year’s team, either. Apparently playing competently enough to be intriguing to fans once the Rockets season ended just wasn’t doable.

“I can’t speak for everybody, I can only speak for myself,” catcher Jason Castro said. “I definitely am fully prepared for every game. From what I see, I think guys are going out there with a solid game plan and have an idea what they’re trying to do.”

There remains a laundry list of disappointments right now.

“There’s adversity at various points along the season and you never know when it’s going to occur,” Astros general manager Jeff Luhnow said before the start of this series. “It’s part of what we sign up for and the key is not to get down, just keep going. Keep doing the right things, make the right decisions. Eventually we’re going to have a couple breaks go our way. I think that’ll happen.”

Jose Abreu, the first baseman the Astros were a few million shy of signing this winter, had an incredible April for the White Sox as a rookie.

The top two draft picks from the last two years, Mark Appel and Carlos Correa, are not playing in affiliated game action right now in the minors. Appel is at extended spring training while Correa has an arm injury said to be minor.

The TV network’s bankruptcy is still a thorn.

George Springer is here at last, yes. But he made his fifth fielding error in his 14th game Wednesday – and it let Denard Span run 360 feet, from home plate to home plate, on what was ruled a triple for the game’s first run in the third inning. Springer had trouble picking up the ball in right-center.

“I think a lot of it is the speed of the game,” Porter said. “There has to be a maturation that takes place of – you look at the play today. It’s a double or possible triple.”

After a four-run fourth inning, the Nats led 5-0.

Oberholtzer in many ways deserves a pass. The 24-year-old was the first Astros pitcher to allow no more than four earned runs in each of his first 14 career starts since Darryl Kile did it in 1991. That streak ended on April 24 against the A’s.

Even before Wednesday, Oberholtzer had received the worst run support average in the majors since Sept. 7 of last year (for starters with at least 40 innings thrown in that span).